by Ray Burke

Created on: August 11, 2008

Is there an end to oil?

There is a big misconception about the Oil Age: that it will someday end. Well, it will never truly end. For some reason, people anticipate that oil will eventually run out or will be phased out to introduce new energy technologies and reduce carbon dioxide, but oil will be with us for a very long time to come. Why? Well, as one of my favourite sayings goes: The Stone Age did not end for lack of stones.' And the same is true for the Oil Age. As one technology replaces another, the older technology is still in use and even today we use stone, bronze and iron for other needs, whether in different forms or functions. And oil will still be needed.

While oil usage may be vastly reduced there are some areas in the world that will continue to use oil for its basic functions (e.g. travel, cooking, manufacturing, etc.), where new technologies will be inaccessible (due to costs, geographical or geopolitical considerations), or are unwanted or unnecessary (no need to change or oil is in low usage). Oil is not just used for transport, but also for plastics, cosmetics, rubberised products, fertilisers, etc. Our world would be completely void of many of the household products and luxuries we own and consume if oil were not a component of their manufacture. Further, oil and gas will still play a major part in the production of its successor technology: the so-called Hydrogen Economy.

New Energy:
It is cheaper and easier to attain hydrogen from natural gas and even if the more expensive water-separation treatment is used, the generators used would still be fossil-fuelled. Hydrogen is not as efficient as oil for energy nor can it replace the oil ingredient in other products. So as long as we need hydrogen for the new economy, we will still need the oil companies (now self-styled energy companies) to pump oil and gas to produce hydrogen. For the oil companies -sorry energy companies- to invest in wind, solar, biofuel, and tidal power, they will need the money from oil sales to start up these ventures. At the moment the alternative energies will never return the profits that oil can, so these companies will continue to milk the cash cow, but at the same time start paying more than lip service to developing alternative sources of energy.

Oil Wars and Finance:
People also anticipate that when the oil runs out, so will major causes of conflict, especially U.S. aggression. But the U.S. was a major aggressor' in the Americas before oil was discovered and widely exploited,

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